Busy Iambic Therapeutics has picked up more than $100 million in new funding as it looks to advance its portfolio of AI-discovered therapeutics.
The oversubscribed funding round comes on the heels of an eventful month for the AI-driven biotech, with co-founder and CEO Tom Miller, Ph.D., considering the new financing as a “testament to the exceptional work of the Iambic team,” he said in a Nov. 10 press release.
Iambic recently linked up with Jazz Therapeutics to study its brain-penetrant HER2 small-molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) prospect IAM1363 in combination with Jazz’s HER2-targeted bispecific antibody Ziihera (zanidatamab). Jazz agreed to provide its Ziihera at no cost as Iambic plans to study the combo in patients with HER2-positive breast cancer who have previously been treated with Daiichi Sankyo and AstraZeneca’s Enhertu.
The partnership came about as Iambic presented early-phase clinical data for IAM1363 as a monotherapy at the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) annual meeting in Berlin. In its presentation, the biotech showed that the prospect was linked with anti-tumor activity in patients with HER2-mutant NSCLC and HER2-positive breast and gastric cancers, plus other indications that don’t yet have approved HER2-directed TKIs or antibodies.
IAM1363 was designed to overcome the limitations of current HER2-directed therapies and was the first of Iambic’s programs to hit the clinic last year.
Now, the biotech is riding the momentum with plans to advance two other programs.
“We look forward to continuing Iambic's progress and anticipate our KIF18A and CDK2/4 programs entering the clinic as well as additional discovery and technology enablement collaborations in the near term,” Miller said in the recent release.
A collection of new and existing investors contributed “balanced support” to the funding round, including Abingworth, Everbright Biofund, Illumina Ventures, Pegasus Tech Ventures, Qatar Investment Authority, Regeneron Ventures and Sequoia, to name a few.
In 2023, Iambic raised $100 million to support its pipeline in a series B round, following a $53 million series A round in 2021.
Meanwhile, the biotech is in line for up to $25 million through a collaboration with Revolution Medicines. Under the deal, announced in July, Revolution has access to "Iambic’s industry-leading NeuralPLexer model for protein structure prediction," according to the deal announcement.